Various attempts have been made to protect the door and side panels of a vehicle from being dented, dinged or nicked when persons carelessly open the doors of adjacent vehicles and allow the edges thereof to strike the door or side panel(s) of the subject vehicle.
One such attempt includes new car manufacturers and/or automobile dealers attaching protective molding along the side and door panels of vehicles to prevent such nicks or small dents. While these side molding strips, which are commonly formed of rubber-like or plastic material, offer some degree of protection, they normally are quite narrow and extend only about one-half inch outwardly from the surface of the side or door panel. Consequently, doors of adjacent vehicles nonetheless commonly damage the finish and paint of many vehicles equipped with such side molding strips.
Numerous other prior art attempts include retractable sideguard protectors or bumpers. For example, Hoffman, U.S. Pat. No. 2,512,527, relates to an extendible/retractable guard for protecting the sides of a vehicle that is actuated by power means accessible from the driver's seat. Hoffman's protector includes an elongated bumper rotatable from a first retracted position beneath the chassis of the vehicle to a second extended position in which it overlies only the lower portion of the side of the vehicle. The bumper of Hoffman is driven between its retracted and extended positions by power means including a pair of hydraulic cylinders arranged beneath the car. Hoffman fails to provide any protection to the area of the side and door panels that need it most, the mid-sections of the door, that, on modern vehicles, tend to extend outwardly the farthest, thereby making them more vulnerable to dings and dents. Moreover, most of today's vehicle body designs would not accommodate an assembly such as Hoffman's.
Hertzel, U.S. Pat. No. 3,718,357, discloses a retractable side bumper guard attached to the underside of the automobile. Hertzel's system includes a flat baseboard, which is driven by pneumatic cylinder-and-piston assemblies attached to the baseboard, and a similarly shaped sub-baseboard that is normally biased in a vertical position by means of spring hinges when the assembly is fully extended outwardly from beneath the vehicle. The baseboard and sub-baseboard assembly is moved to its extended protective position by an actuating piston, thereby permitting the sub-baseboard to move to its biased vertical position once it clears the side frame of the vehicle. To remove the bumper guard from its operative position, the drive element is actuated in a reverse manner to retract the baseboard and sub-baseboard such that they lie completely beneath the automobile. As with Hoffman, Hertzel fails to protect the vulnerable mid-section portions of the sides of the vehicle, and today's vehicle body designs will not accommodate such a structure.
Hinojos, U.S. Pat. No. 4,437,697, also discloses a retractable side guard for an automobile to prevent the door and side panels from being damaged when persons carelessly open the doors of adjacent automobiles. Hinojos discloses a side guard mechanism carried within two tubular housing elements attached to the bottom of the automobile. In a fully extended configuration, telescoping mechanisms extend from the tubular housings, both of which include an upright member connected to a pivot mechanism, which in turn are connected to piston-pivot blocks that slide back and forth within the tubular housings. T-bars are connected to the outer ends of the tubular members and have pairs of telescoping rods extending from their opposed ends. The free ends of the telescoping rods each extend into an elongated sleeve to collectively form a single rigid rod extending horizontally along the side of the car. The protective rod assembly of Hinojos is extended outwardly in a protective position and retracted inwardly into its inoperative position manually by the user.
Other attempts exemplary of the conventional art include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,221,410; 4,221,412; 4,461,503; 4,493,502; 4,530,519; 5,004,281; and 5,129,677.
A need still exists, however, for a protective assembly that has few parts, is simple in operation, and that may be readily retrofitted to existing vehicles of varying makes and models, or installed in new vehicles during their manufacture, to protect the side and door panels of the subject vehicle from the doors of adjacent vehicles.